A Raisin In The Sun American Dream Essay

Immigrants dreamed of coming to the United States for years. The United States is emerging and becoming more industrialized. Immigrants wanted a this thriving country for their own. They also wanted the government to protect each person’s opportunity to pursue their own idea of happiness. So these families immigrated and came to America to live the American Dream. The American Dream us achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work, not by chance. Both sacrifice and risk-taking may have been hard for some families to accomplish in order to come to America, but it was necessary. These families that really had a passion to live in America, and to be happy needed to put in hard work, to get back a good result. The American Dream is something that needs to be worked for, not taken for granted and was not achieved by chance, it was achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work.

All in all Mama and Walters dreams both involve money. Mama shows us her longing for the acceptance of society when she immediately buys a house in a white neighborhood, to provide for her family. Walter shows us his desperation to be a valuable human being when he steals money in hopes of starting his liquor business. Walter wants to be respected and live a happy lifestyle for this family. He longs to be the head of the household. Walter see’s himself with a liquor store as having power. It isn’t till the end until he rethinks the values of himself and his family’s future about how there is more to living than just having material riches. Mama only yearns for her family to be respected and live up to what society perceives.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun,” was a radically new representation of black life, resolutely authentic, fiercely unsentimental, and unflinching in its vision of what happens to people whose dreams are constantly deferred.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun features an African American family in the late 1950’s as they look forward to achieving their individual dreams in the era where racism and economic hardship among African Americans was the norm. While Hansberry doesn’t directly mention well-known events in the civil rights movement, she illustrates the realistic struggles an African American family would have faced during this time. In the introduction of the play, Robert Nemiroff illustrates several themes and issues that are addressed throughout Hansberry’s play. One of the subjects Nemiroff mentions is the “value systems of the black family”(Nemiroff, “Introduction,” 5-6). A main value that Hansberry illustrates throughout the play is the

The 1960s was a time in which America underwent great change and development. This change instilled an optimism in some African-American citizens for the future. Despite the fact that racism was still alive in America many had hopes and dreams for a better future. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, ‘A Raisin In The Sun’ she greatly emphasizes that dreams can inspire and frustrate but ultimately their lasting effect can change the dreamer positively whether that be receiving a dose of reality and changing for the better or be it finally achieving dreams and goals.

The United States is recognized as the “land of the free” and home of the “American Dream.” According to James Truslow Adams in Epic of America, the American Dream is defined as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” It is based on the foundations of the Declaration of Independence: the rights to Liberty, Life, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Amadeo, What is the American Dream?). People have the right to pursue their dreams and acquire a better life through sheer effort and motivation. At the time of the American Dream’s creation in 1931, the main people were white male property owners. The rights were extended to slaves and

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, is a great example of the struggles faced by an impoverished black family; who strive to deal with the realities of life on the ghetto side of South Chicago. Written in the 1958, this play illustrates the destructive consequences of impecuniousness and repression on African American families. Throughout the play, Hansberry (who is he, describe) shows the day-to-day struggles of a black family and explains the different perspectives on the American Dream. Each character in the play have their own hopes and dreams, however, these end up clashing with one another. Hansberry uses the Younger family to show that despite oppression and subjugation; a dream to live a better life is achievable with family unity and support.

Everyone desires wealth and fame to prosper as presented by our human nature, however wealth and fame entices the opposite. The so called “American Dream” is presented in the plays A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Through the following stories it is evident that the American Dream imbeds corruption in people, by analyzing the id which represents the desire for the dream, ego which states society guidelines of the dream and super ego which contains personal judgment of the dream. These following elements are theories developed by Sigmund Freud and will be seen in multiple points of the story. Despite the admirable pleasures that come from the American Dream, the dark corruption vastly

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, addresses the hardships of an African-American family living in the projects of post-segregation Chicago. The family aspires to fulfill their dreams of owning a home despite the odds they face. W.E.B Du Bois critical race theory explains the issue of racism and white dominance that not only the family in the play faces, but the African American community as a whole.

In the 1920’s, many African-American families had left the southern states and migrated north to Chicago’s South Side in search of the “American Dream”, dreaming of freedom, equality, and the opportunity that was supposed to be available to every American. This “American Dream” was sought by many African Americans in the U.S. Written by Lorraine Hansberry and produced in 1959, The play: A Raisin in the Sun, gave readers a strong meaning about the values of dreams and the struggles in fulfilling them. Unlike other plays that contain one main character, A Raisin in the Sun consisted of having two main characters: Walter and Mama. The audience may find that one of the main characters from the play,

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, addresses the hardships of an African-American family living in the projects of post-segregation Chicago. The family aspires to fulfill their dreams of owning a home despite the odds they face. W.E.B Du Bois critical race theory explains the issue of racism and white dominance that not only the family in the play faces, but the African-American community as a whole.

Walter desires to move up the social ladder without challenging societal ideals, contrasting with Beneatha’s feminist viewpoints. Walter wants the trust and respect that defines him as a strong, pragmatic male figure in the household, whereas, Beneatha believes women have the right to pursue successful careers and lead content lives in which their husbands do not hold them back. She illustrates these feminist ideals when she states to Asagai, “I know – because that’s what it says in all the novels that men write. But it isn’t. Go ahead and laugh – but I’m not interested in being someone’s little episode in America or one of them! That’s funny as he**, huh!” (Hansberry 856). Beneatha cannot tolerate the fact that Walter believes her dreams are less than his because she is a female. She struggles with refuting the societal norm and sexist ideals that define women as domesticated, uneducated housewives. This later causes long disputes dividing the family and a lack of trust which eventually results in the loss of the money and their dreams. Furthermore, Walter’s need to prove himself as the man of the family leads to his clandestine deal to invest in the liquor store with Willy Harris. By blindly handing away his father’s insurance check, Walter hands away not only the family’s future, but also everything his father worked for in an effort

In life many people believe that their dreams don’t work out because of either their ability to not complete it or they get distracted with other things that are happening to them at the time. This is shown to happen to many people in history and even characters in books, because they want people to learn how to push through to complete their dreams. In the book “A Raisin in The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, the characters Walter and Beneatha believe that their dreams should be completed overnight or someone else in their family has the answers for them, this eventually leads to them struggling to complete their dreams because of their decisions.

A person's story is told through words on a paper. In fact, many people can relate their lives to books they read .One book that portrays many problems in American families is Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. In the play many of the themes depict not only the characters in the book but also many americans lives. The evidence of american dream, feminism and the struggle of cultural identity.

Walter’s mother has a different dream, a dream of having a house of their own. His dream of becoming a businessman was destroyed when Mama bought a house. His manhood also took a big hit. Walter said “What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine – you – who always talking ‘bout your children’s dreams . . .” (Hansberry 94) Walter was not able to make a call as the head of the house and he blamed his mother.